A new NATO overview says the record €90.6B on defence expenditure, to which Berlin committed for the first time this year, corresponds to a 2.12 percent share of the forecast German GDP, and is higher than expected at the beginning of the year.
Israel’s defence ministry reported that exports to Abraham Accords countries, alone, reached approximately USD 3 billion, amounting to 24 percent of Israeli weapons sales and exports of unmanned systems made up 25 percent of its exports.
400,000 people will have to complete a questionnaire each year, and some 40,000 candidates could then take part in the physical mandatory physical check-up call-up. Pistorius stressed that he anticipates only summoning those who indicate a voluntary interest.
Israel will acquire 25 Lockheed Martin fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighters and the Israeli Air Force will expand its fleet to 75 of these advanced stealth aircraft. The delivery of the aircraft to the IDF will commence in 2028 at a rate of three to five aircraft per year. The transaction is valued at approximately USD 3 billion, funded by U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF).
NATO allies are planning to launch a new project in support of Kiev, dubbed “NATO Mission Ukraine“, at their next summit in Washington. The German government is reportedly concerned that designating the project a mission could be understood as NATO planning to send troops to Ukraine, and prefers the name, “Pledge Assistance Coordination Training” – or “PACT“.
Ralf Ketzel, managing director of KNDS, manufacturer of Leopard 2 battle tanks, said,”The ability to deliver quickly is now exhausted,” adding, “Two years ago, a strategic decision should have been made that this will be a war lasting several years. Then we could deliver new material today,” in reference to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.
The Bayraktar TB3 naval Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle is intended for service in the Turkish UAV carrier TCG Anadolu and according to manufacturer, Baykar, the test was conducted from a ramp at a test centre. The Bayraktar TB3 has logged almost 396 hours of flight over the course of testing, with a peak endurance demonstration of 32 hours, covering a distance of 5,700 kilometres during a test in December. Baykar said they plan to begin tests of the TB3 onboard the TCG Anadolu later this year.
Economy Minister Aušrinė Armonaitė said Rheinmetall would invest more than €180 million ($195 million) in the new plant, which is expected to produce 155-millimetre artillery shells. Rheinmetall is already active in Lithuania, operating a maintenance centre with defence company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann in the country since 2022. The facility maintains combat vehicles used by NATO combat units stationed in the region, as well as Leopard 2 battle tanks given by Germany to Ukraine.
Scholz said he was “strongly in favour of maintaining and expanding production capacities. That is why we will order 20 more Eurofighters in this legislative period, in addition to the 38 aircraft that are currently still in the pipeline.”
According to Airbus, ‘In military aviation, a Wingman is a pilot in another aircraft that protects and supports the flight lead, delivers more tactical options and thus contributes to mission success. In the Airbus concept, the Wingman is going to operate very much in the same way – only that it is neither a pilot nor a fighter jet flown by one. It is a fighter-type drone that will be commanded by a pilot in a current combat aircraft such as the Eurofighter and can take on high-risk mission tasks that would pose a bigger threat to manned-only aircraft.’
The Starliner is an astronaut capsule that is supposed to reusable up to ten times and includes an expendable service module. According to Boeing, ‘Wilmore and Williams are also the first to launch on an Atlas V rocket.’
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck: “Ukraine does not have enough defensive weapons to protect the lives of its people. It is only logical that Ukraine should defend itself by being able to prevent attacks from Russia. Prohibiting it from doing so would mean the death of more people.”
Seventy-four Israeli companies were supposed to exhibit at the Eurosatory defence exhibition on the outskirts of Paris, later this month, before they were banned after French President Emmanuel Macron called for Israeli attacks on Rafah to stop. Israeli stands were empty at the Dubai Airshow held last November, shortly after the October 7th attack by Hamas. But they were back on display at the Singapore Airshow held last February.
The German Ministry of Defence said in order to “compete for the best minds, the use of TikTok is indispensable”. Special measures are being introduced for the use of TikTok. These include the technical separation between the Bundeswehr‘s networks and the TikTok platform. Dedicated end devices should be used without access to the Bundeswehr‘s IT structure. TikTok software is still neither authorized nor technically possible on official IT.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is resisting a possible Western expansion in military backing for Ukraine, saying on Sunday he does not favour allowing Kiev to use German weapons to hit targets in Russia as German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Saturday in Italy the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized democracies still have “a lot of work to do” on using interest generated from frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.
